Author Topic: Donkey Kong Jr. mystery  (Read 6839 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline gaknar

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8
    • Awards
Donkey Kong Jr. mystery
« on: March 06, 2018, 07:40:14 am »
About 8 years ago I purchase a DK Jr cabinet. The game board in this cabinet has always puzzled me, because the level progression matches that of the Japanese version of the game, but all other aspects of the game match the US version. The title screen says "Nintendo of America" and the serial number plate on the back says it's a US version, and yet the 4 stages of the game cycle through from the very first level of the game.

Adding to the mystery, when I first opened the cabinet up I found a 5C rom chip at the bottom of the cabinet (see pictures). Is it possible that this board was service at some point, had a bad 5C, and someone accidentally replaced it with a Japanese ROM for just this chip? Would that cause the behavior I'm seeing? Can anyone think of what else could be going on here?
Member for 6 Years

Online Scoundrl

  • Elite Member
  • *
  • Posts: 343
    • Awards
Re: Donkey Kong Jr. mystery
« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2018, 01:36:13 pm »
It looks like they are labeled as the -E (easier) so you probably have the -E kit.

Pretty cool. I'd love to have a set of those 'Original' -e roms to add to my collection of Nintendo kit ROMS

-Ken

 Nintendo Service Department Bulletin # DJR-03         02-23-83
    GAME: Donkey Kong Junior
    SUBJECT: Play Time
    It has come to our attention that play time on Donkey Kong
    Junior is, in some cases, excessive, while in other cases
    there is concern over the ability of players to learn the
    game and thereby retain an interest in playing.
    We are making available, through our Nintendo Distributors,
    two EPROM change kits, designated DJR1-E and DJR1-P.
    The E kit consists of four (4) chips and is an easier version
    of the program.  it presents the board sequence in a way which
    familiarizes the players with the game faster.  The board
    order is vines, springboard, Mario's hideout and keys.
    The P kit is a more difficult version consisting of two chips.
    The order remains the same while more and faster
    obstacles (snapjaws, nitpickers, etc.) are presented.
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    E-Kit - roms
    ------------------------------------------------
    Filename    Label          Type   Loc/PCB  CSum
    ----------- -------------- ------ -------  ---- --
    2732.5Ae    DJR1-C-5A e    2732   5A(CPU)  68E9
    2764.5Be    DJR1-C-5B e    2764   5B(CPU)  B0CF
    2764.5Ce    DJR1-C-5C e    2764   5C(CPU)  FC64
    2764.5Ee    DJR1-C-5E e    2764   5E(CPU)  7CC6
    ------------------------------------------------
    P-Kit roms (Still looking for these, suffix is
    more than likely P. :)
    ------------------------------------------------
    Filename    Label          Type   Loc/PCB  CSum
    ----------- -------------- ------ -------  ---- --
    empty       ---------      ----   5A(CPU)  ----
    2764.5Bp    DJR1-C-5B p    2764   5B(CPU)  1B58
    2764.5Cp    DJR1-C-5C p    2764   5C(CPU)  F4FE
    ------------------------------------------------
Member for 11 Years Blogger Twitch Streamer

Offline YesAffinity

  • Spring Jumper
  • *
  • Posts: 578
    • Awards
Re: Donkey Kong Jr. mystery
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2018, 03:16:16 pm »
Do you have an eprom burner, that you can use to dump that chip (or all of them, for that matter), and run each file through romident, to see what they match up with in the MAME set?

http://romident.coinopflorida.com/

If they match, then you will know what they are.

If they don't match anything in the MAME set, you may have one of the undumped sets, and folks would sure love to have that shared.
Matthew 21:22

DK Arcade PB (verified): 970,200 KS
DK Start PB (verified): 126,600
DK L1-1 PB (verified): 11,400
DK PB 1st Man: 622,000

Donkey Kong Direct Feed How-To - http://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=1413.0
^Now outdated, see instead: http://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=2471.0
Member for 9 Years DK Killscreener Blogger Twitch Streamer

Offline gaknar

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8
    • Awards
Re: Donkey Kong Jr. mystery
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2018, 06:00:24 am »
I think it is very likely that what I have is the -e kit as Scoundrl said, since my 5A, 5B, 5C, and 5D chips all have the -e on them like the above service bulletin states. (thank you so much for this info Scoundrl!!! I finally have an answer to this question!!).

However, I am hopefully going to be procuring a DK board that has some sprite issues this weekend, and I was looking into getting an eprom reader / writer to do some work on it, and if I can figure all that out then I can check these DK Jr chips to be sure I know what I've got.

Can anyone recommend a eprom reader / writer that for sure works with the eproms from a DK and DK Jr. board? This one on amazon seems pretty versatile:

https://www.amazon.com/PRG-112-GQ-universal-programmer-Adapter/dp/B01212KD74/ref=sr_1_1?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1520431124&sr=1-1&keywords=gq-4x
Member for 6 Years

dwayne

  • Guest
Re: Donkey Kong Jr. mystery
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2018, 09:20:45 pm »
has anyone found the harder set of dk jr?  there are 3 sets  easy regular and hard